By JH Sayyar
“Twelfth Night” is one of the best comedies of Shakespeare. It is romantic comedy not a pure comedy which concerns with a love affair that involves a cute and idealized hero and sometimes disguised as a man in the whole play.
But the course of love does not run smoothly but at the end both the lovers are joined with a happy union. A Midsummer Night and As you Like It both are the best examples in which music plays an important role to develop the plot of the comedy in a beautiful way.
The songs, sung by Feste, the clown are very touching and full of wisdom. Shakespeare introduces the clown as a musician in the play. However, the clown who declares his wit through songs and music is as wise as the Fool of King Lear is. It is a fact that the clown musician is certainly merry. Shakespeare’s clown’s merry and expert eyes expose the hypocrisy of the world in his music. As the text shows:
“I wear not motley in my brain.”
These are the wise and witty words of Feste. Here the writer shows that how music can hypnotize soul and compels the soul to perform such functions as madness, love and hate… Here Coleridge says, “ Twelfth Night is the best example of rhetoric where shifts in rhythm and sound have been so skillfully manipulated by Shakespeare,”
Shakespeare inserts an unusual numbers of songs in Twelfth Night in order to take the advantage of the power of the music plus the finest voice. These sons are introduced as songs just the songs of real life.
To show the power of music Dryden also wrote Alexander Feast. In which Timothious the musician makes melodies just to change the mood of Alexander from romantic mood to sadness and sadness to a happy mood and from happy mood to angry mood. The same function performs the clown musician. Feste makes songs for the Duke just to please his sad mood. The main function of songs is to remove the disappointment of Olivia’s love.
The play Twelfth Night opens with the strains of music that touches the lovesick soul of Orsino, the Duke. In the first song, which is in act-3 and scene-3, it is very touching song and full of practical reality. As the text shows:
“O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true lover coming
That can sing both high and low
Trip no further, pretty sweeting
Journeys end in lovers’ meetings
Every wise man’s son doth know.”
As we see when the music stops the Duke becomes sad. He is always in love with Olivia who has refused to see him and rejects him as her lover. That is why the Duke remains sad and listens to music to decrease his sadness.
The second song of Feste is in act-2, scene-4. It is also a very touching song and full of metaphysical conceit. As the text shows:
“Come away, come away death
Fly away, fly away, breath
I am slain by a pious cruel maid
Sad true love never find my grave
To weep there.”
Here the duke wishes to be die on not finding the true love of Olivia and declares him to be her faithful lover. The third song sung by the clown is most philosophical and exposes the realities of life. As the text shows:
“When that I was a little tiny boy
Gainst…
But when I came, alas, to beds
By swaggering…
When I come unto my bed
With loss, posts…
A great while age the begun.”
The song has some of the forlorn pathos of K. Lear: the rain that rain every day, most beautiful lines written by Shakespeare because the rain opens the realities of life before the King Lear’s eyes. In fact Shakespeare changes the mood of the story with the magical touch of melody.
Thus he changes the crude materials into gold and enriches the story with a new atmosphere, a new and sublime comic power, and a moral and spiritual power into the listeners. Here Dieppe Lawrence says, “Music plays an important role in the play as in the real life of a common man. Music decreases love sadness for a shot time and it is an escape from the reality of love. The Duke feels Olivia’s love in Feste’s music and have hope to find it someday.”
At last the Duke gets her love with the help of Viola who is so sweet as Feste’s music that moulds Olivia”s stony heart. But in this happy union the songs play an important role that makes active the Duke to continuing love. The music teaches and delights the Duke throughout the play.
To sum up, Twelfth Night is best and loveliest romantic comedy of Shakespeare. In this play Shakespeare mixes the tragedy into comedy to achieve a love –effect. The play also presents the image of self-deception, delusion and sentimentality by means of a romantic fable.
the play also shows that three souls suffer from this sickly vanity that feeds on daydreams. Orsino is under the mood of love and to remove the sadness of love he gets the support of music so that he could forget love failure. Olivia is under the mood of mourning on her brother’s death but Viola is upset due to her disguise. Because Olivia has fallen in his love considering her young man but the case is entirely reverse. At the end the mystery is exposed.
Here Roger Parker says,” it is the magic of music that makes the comedy most real and the songs develop the story from the very beginning. Shakespeare poetry carries pathos, depth of ideas, magical beauty of phrase, and the power to mould human heart.”
To sum up, Twelfth Night is the best romantic comedy. Its fame rests on its music full of wisdom and practical experience. The imagery used by Shakespeare is most powerful and full of magical effects. The thing that makes it a full comedy is Viola’s disguise herself in a man’s disguise and the songs of Feste and Orsino’s behavior is also comical.
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Music is very important to the listener especially when you know the lyrics of the music and when you love the beating of music.
I might not know the lyrics of a music but my love for the music will grow cos of the beating.
I think the main Booster of a music is its beating. When the beating is acceptable to the listeners, the lyrics doesn't matter again.
Why I think the beating is important is that it gives the listeners a reason to dance to the tone of the music.
A beating of a music can be slow or fast but I love slow beat music as I enjoy it the most.
The only music I like to have a slow beat are the worship songs which brings us back to our Lord. When a worship song is sang in a slow beat it tends to be more enjoyable.
Music is very important in our everyday activities in the sense that;
It relieves pain and return joy to the listeners
It reduces an idle mind even if you are alone cos listening to music works with the mind and the brain.
It lowers high blood pressure especially when the music has a comedy attachments.
It also enables one to remember his past experience depending on the information the music contains.
Musics can affect the character of a person morally.
For me personally music enhances sleep. Sometimes when I don't feel like sleeping I switch on my music and I will not know when to sleep. I always put my best music to enhance the enjoyment.
Really really this post is nice. Music is very important and every music is good depending on someone's perspective to the music.
Every one has music in their heart. :)
It sounds really interesting to watch. I remember there is a set book that we did in school called Romeo and Juliet it was also based on a love story, that got so many young children by surprise. I remember whenever it was time for literature everyone was wide awake just to listen to words of the love birds and learn from it.you would hear many people using some I the love lines used there to court girls very interesting. Anyway back to the topic, music is a healing of the soul. If there are people who don't listen or who don't like music, if you look at them or study them closely you will notice that they are either not romantic or they really don't know how to please their partners in the smallest ways. Music can teach us a lot of things in life, and this is one thing that many people don't know. I love music and I tend to play it all the time. Whether am working in the house or at work, there is always music playing I theback ground. When am driving I play music in the car, when am walking I have my big earphones on but that I don't do everyday for the sake of my ears. When I go to bed I'll have some music playing as I lie in bed, as I wait for sleep to come, then when I start dosing I switch off. Right now as I write this post am playing some music as I go on. I would recommend for people's to learn to live music it changes moods and always put a smile on people's faces try it.
I do agree music is extremely important, it is a way of expression and affect your mood and mindset. Althought i'm not really knowledgeable about Shakespeare, his twelfth night seems quite intresting.